Stories for May 5, 2009

The San Diego City Council voted Tuesday to declare a level two drought in the city. Council members say this is the first step in creating a more comprehensive water conservation policy for the city. KPBS reporter Katie Orr has details.

Chuck Palahniuk's tenth novel is a biting cultural satire narrated by Pygmy, a 13-year-old terrorist who has infiltrated the US disguised as a foreign exchange student. Written as a series of dispatches from Pygmy, the prose doesn't follow grammatical rules or sentence structure, but includes Palahniuk's propensity to push the boundaries.

San Diego’s City Council is facing a difficult decision. Should it move forward with plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new City Hall? KPBS Metro Reporter Katie Orr spoke with several Council members to see where they stand on the issue.

The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency is working with local school district officials to reopen three local high schools where students were dismissed, based on new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

San Diego City Council votes on a new Salary Ordinance today. But the city’s lowest paid workers are still fighting for more flexibility in how to meet the 6 percent cut in pay and benefits. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Does the glass ceiling still exist? According to one of the most powerful women in American business, it does. But Nina DiSesa, chairman of the advertising agency McCann Erickson New York, says to get to the top you have to play the game like a man.

A UCSD political science professor's discovery of 47 letters written by, to and about Benjamin Franklin shed new light on the relationship between the British crown and colonists during the French and Indian War.

U.S. and Afghan officials agree that most of the 21,000 U.S. troops President Obama plans to send to Afghanistan in the coming months should be deployed in Kandahar and its surrounding areas to fight the Taliban resurgence.

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed an executive order ensuring all state resources will be available to battle wildfires this summer. But, the announcement comes on the heels of reports that the governor plans to cut Cal Fire funds by ten-percent-or roughly 1,700 workers.